Consultation: Likely to include consultation events and paper, making provisional proposals for comment

Policy development: Will include analysis of consultation responses. Could include further issues papers and consultation on draft Bill

Reported: Usually recommendations for law reform but can be advice to government, scoping report or other recommendations

We are recommending that a new Planning Code is created for Wales, which is comprehensive but simpler. We have analysed the responses to our Consultation Paper, and produced a Final Report, submitted to the Welsh Government and laid in the UK Parliament and in the National Assembly on 03 December 2018.

The problem

Planning law in Wales is unnecessarily complicated and, in places, difficult to understand.

The legislation has not been consolidated since the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and that has been supplemented by a succession of piecemeal changes ever since – notably the Planning and Compensation Act 2004 and the Planning (Wales) Act 2015.

Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify what the planning law of Wales actually is. New legislation made in the Assembly and in Parliament may apply to Wales only, to England only, or to both England and Wales. This creates an ever more complex system.

There are also a number of places where the law could be made clearer, or where redundant provisions could be done away with.

We concluded that there wasn’t a need for further major policy changes in this area, but that there was clearly a need for planning law in Wales to be simplified and modernised. We produced a Scoping Paper in June 2016, setting out our preliminary proposals on a possible consolidation and reform exercise.

The Commission then considered possible improvements to the legislation, to reflect how the system works in practice. We produced in November 2017 a full Consultation Paper, setting out our conclusions as to the scope of the project and outlining over 180 proposals for technical reforms. We circulated this widely, and embarked on a major consultation exercise. As a result, we received over 160 responses.

The final report

We have reconsidered our proposals, in the light of those responses, and we have now published a Final Report, containing 193 recommendations. This was published in November 2018. It will form part of the evidence base for the Welsh Government to consider in simplifying and consolidating planning legislation in Wales – which we hope will result in a Bill being laid before the Assembly during this Assembly term.

In accordance with the protocol agreed between the Welsh Government and the Law Commission, the Welsh Government will provide an interim response to our Report by the end of May 2019, with a detailed response to be provided by the end of November 2019.